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Friday, July 18, 2008

There are No Accidents or Coincidences

The 2008 DreamWorks animation, "Kung Fu Panda", shows Oogway memorably pointed out two truths:

1. There is a saying. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why we call it the present.

2. There are no accidents.

Here is an article on the latter:

By Ken R. Abell
In The Green County Dailies

Life comes with no guarantees. What we take for granted can disappear in a sixty second newsflash. Consider the 8000 workers at DHL in Wilmington. The company's proposed closure of the Wilmington hub may mesh with its global strategy, but for the employees involved, with unemployment around the next corner, the prospect of caring for family needs is unsettling. For those whose jobs will be eliminated, DHL's restructuring plan creates a future that likely appears murky and perhaps even a bit frightening.

Life is like that, isn't it? It slows us down from time to time so we have a chance to assess or adjust our direction. We can be coasting along on cruise control when a sharp curve in the road causes us to pressure the brakes. It can be anything. A distressed phone call from hundreds of miles away; a courageous battle against cancer; an unfolding tragedy we have no control over; a media report about disturbing societal trends; a corporate decision made behind closed doors.

Our attitudes tend to drift, requiring us to recalibrate them to timeless truth. The wise response to potholes or winding roads is to take stock of what is truly important. We should measure our connection to family and friends; we should contemplate our spiritual dimension. Pauses in the traffic jams of our lives can be meditative moments for us to reflect on the deeper meaning of commonplace events or circumstances.

There are no accidents or coincidences. Twists in the road are designed to promote healthy self-examination that results in positive action. The bad news is that we can be pigheaded, so sometimes it takes a near disaster for us to explore our relationship with our Maker; the good news is that nasty turns can be the catalyst for even hardened skeptics and agnostics to become introspective about the mysteries of God.

Everyone desires purpose. No one wants to treadmill his or her way down dead-end lanes. We all want to come to terms with the big questions about existence. There is a hollow place within us that craves significance. We attempt to satisfy its appetite by being true to our natural instincts. Our human inclination is to pursue financial success and personal pleasure by traveling along avenues offering varying degrees of fame and fortune.

An ancient Hebrew king named Solomon exhibited the classic pattern. He indulged in an excessive quest for self-fulfillment. He tried everything his society offered but to no avail. He achieved all the wealth, power and glory possible, yet it was all “chasing after the wind.” Contentment escaped him. Then he evaluated all his experiences. During a long retrospective period he determined that when God is removed from the equation, all human endeavor is meaningless: “Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.”

Life will knock us to our knees. We live in a corrupt world where no one is immune from its dysfunctional backlashes. In our fragility, we are in constant need of heaven’s help. We ought to include God in our lives, but in the rat-race culture of self-actualization, our tendency is to ignore him. We keep God in some mythical God-slot to be opened only in case of emergencies. Sometimes we box our lives into such structured compartments that we treat spirituality like it’s a fast-food meal: “Would you like God with that?” After all, we can’t have him mixing in with the rest of our lives, can we? Yes, as a matter of fact, we can. And that, friends and neighbors, is the point.

Contrary to the practice of acknowledging God only in the tough situations, we must learn to focus on him so that he impacts every area of our lives. God is not a smörgåsbord item to be added or passed over. He is our loving Heavenly Father; he desires to be involved in all our highs and lows. In reality, we are to strive to live God-centric lives where our choices, our plans and our dreams all flow from that vital relationship. When we invest the necessary effort in an intense relational emphasis, even hairpin turns are seen as merely the ongoing process of change that is life and life only.

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